Drake Inspires New Mac Dre Documentary

A new documentary about the late Mac Dre has just been released, and the Bay Area legend's mother credits Drake with inspiring her to get it made. In an interview with AllHipHop.com, "Mac Wanda" Salvatto cites a conversation with the Toronto rapper as a point where she realized the need to keep Mac Dre's legacy alive.

"I met with Drake in San Francisco we sat down and he talked with me about how Mac Dre impacted his life and his career, what he’s doing and the big impact that Mac Dre had when Drake was a young boy," Salvattto said. "So listening to that, it kind of opened up my eyes that maybe I do need to do this. If Andre was alive he would definitely be capitalizing and making as much money as he could."

Following Mac Dre's murder in 2004, Wanda Salvatto described how she went into seclusion for years. Dre's increased fame after his death made it hard to mourn in private.

"For a while up, for I’d say up to about 8 years after he passed, his daughter and I kind of like went into seclusion," she said. "As you know, we were really depressed, really hurt and really traumatized by his death and everything. The hard part for us was we didn’t really get a chance to grieve or mourn privately, because once he got killed he became an even bigger public figure."

Wanda Salvatto said that she has turned down many opportunities to monetize her son's legacy because she was so hurt. But Salvatto attributes the conversation with Drake as changing her mindset.

"I had been approached by a lot of people to do movies, to do books, to do this and to do that, and interviews and for years I turned it down," she explained. "I didn’t want to do it – I couldn’t do it. So I stopped everything and I purposefully didn’t want to monetize or capitalize on any of it because I was hurt. But in the last few years – to be honest it may have all started when I got that call from Drake and that was three years ago."